The Portway was actually closed. It was mid-afternoon on a Sunday, but I’d seen Claire through the window and she’d let me in. As she moved around, stocking shelves and wiping tables, polishing fixtures and squaring up the menus, I stayed. She didn’t tell me to go home, and now we’re sitting side by side at the bar nursing bottled beers.
She says, “The police have been talking to me. Asking me about Dan and my marriage, our finances, whether there was trouble between us.” She shakes her head. “I want to believe they are looking into every possibility, but it feels like I’m their number one suspect.”
Uh, yeah.
I snag a peanut from the bowl on the bar and crack the shell in halves. “Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, it’s the surviving spouse who’s guilty. So, until they’re convinced otherwise, you’re in the limelight.” I’ve been the investigating officer in several cases where the wife was found guilty, but I don’t mention that. “It probably feels awful, but it’s not personal. Just statistics.”
“Yeah, well, I’d rather not become one.”
For a few minutes, the only noise is the sound of splintering peanut shells. Then Claire says, “You know, I keep thinking that this one is going to be the last. That I won’t have to find another.”
“‘This one’?”
“This life. I really thought I could make it work this time.”
“I’m sorry for your pain. All the death — it must be — I can’t even imagine. It must be awful.” There’s some solace in knowing that there is suffering greater than your own. Not much, but some. “How long were you and Daniel together?”
“I met Dan about ten years ago. Just come up from L.A. Where I’d been for way too long, depending on the wrong guy again.” She lays the sweating bottle against her cheek. “You ever done that, Audrey?”
The wrong guy. I touch the scar on my chest.
Such a thing as the right guy?
I swig a mouthful of my Hef. “I trusted a gangster once. He tried to kill me.”
“You? Thought you were a cop.”
“It’s been a long and strange career.”
“Huh.” Claire takes a drink from her own bottle, puts it with the other dead soldiers and pops the top off another. “I always choose the wrong one. Before Dan it was Maurice, before him it was Harvey. Others. Bu’ that’s it. I’m on my own now.” Her voice is slightly slurred; not a surprise, given the empties on the bar.
“Tell me about Harvey.”
Like you care.
But I do care. Or at least, I’m interested. Can’t be a good cop without being endlessly interested in the human story. Always got to roll that stone away, look at what’s underneath. Plus, friendship. Maybe. I’m out of practice.
“He was the first person besides my mother to tell me that I was beautiful. That guy had a way with words and a taste for adventure, and he made me feel like I could do anything I wanted. That I could have an adventure, too. That’s why I got on the back of his motorcycle to leave Iowa and never looked back. Because he made me feel pretty and powerful. I should’ve known it couldn’t last. That he was just lying to get what he wanted.” Claire shakes her head. “God, that motorcycle, like being on my own personal rocket ship. I wish I could feel that freedom again. That power. Someday, I’m gonna buy one of my own.”
She slides off her stool and beckons me over to the wall. Among the haphazard decor — life preservers, bits of fishing net, floats — there’s a small black and white photo in a metal frame. It shows a Black woman dressed in a white jumpsuit and knee-high boots, standing in front of an old-style Harley.
“Who’s that?” I ask.
“Bessie Stringfield. She was a bad-ass rider back in the day, ’30’s, ’40’s, won races, went cross-country on her Harley, the works. Didn’t let anything slow her down. Had six husbands. Guess they couldn’t keep up. She’s in the Motorcycle Hall of Fame.” She touches the frame. “I put this here to look at when the job feels too much like a death sentence.”
More than anything else she’s said, I get that. “So what happened with Harvey?”
Claire snorts. “We never got further than Des Moines. Harvey got drunk, beat another guy up, got thrown in jail. I ended up working at a bar, washing glasses, wiping tables. The start of my brilliant career.” She waves a hand to encompass the Portway. “Always a need for bartenders. Even on the last day before the world ends, people will be calling for shots.”
“Especially then.” Nod. Head feels heavy for some reason. “How’d you get out of Des Moines?”
“That was Maurice. Slick talking man, said he’d take me to L.A. and make me a star. Again with the promises. But I had high hopes. Turned out I’d gotten hooked up with the wrong guy, again. I was trying to be an actress, but I had no qualifications. That’s hard to realize when you’re young and ambitious. I’d never taken a class, never done anything except Dorothy in a school production of The Wiz way back. I could sing, but I was no Tina Turner. It was so demoralizing going to auditions and to be dismissed before I’d said ten words. And Maurice turned out to be a scumbag. But when I walked away, I walked by myself, and got on the bus to Portland.”
How much longer we got to sit here and listen to her sob story?
She’s getting worse. Zoe, I mean. I don’t want to be her. Ever again. Because I like Claire, and her story. And she needs to talk, a sympathetic ear. I ask her to pour me
